Subscription Plans and Pricing

Choose Your Plan

Free

Non-commercial usage

$0/mo

What's included

1 User
4K HDRi Maps & Backplates
Access to our entire collection of premium HDRi Maps and Backplates
150 credits per month

Personal/Student

Non-commercial usage

$9/mo

What's included

1 User
Up to 30K HDRi Maps & Backplates
Access to our entire collection of premium HDRi Maps and Backplates
400 credits per month

Freelance

Up to $100k funding or yearly revenue

$48/mo

What's included

1 User
Up to 30K HDRi Maps & Backplates
Access to our entire collection of premium HDRi Maps and Backplates
800 credits per month

Pro

Up to $400K funding or yearly revenue

$199/mo

What's included

1 User
Up to 30K HDRi Maps & Backplates
Access to our entire collection of premium HDRi Maps and Backplates
1200 credits per month

Enterprise

No limit on annual revenue

What's included

Team and Vendor access
Dedicated support from the CGI Backgrounds team
Access to our entire collection of premium HDRi Maps and Backplates
No monthly credit limit

Frequently Asked Questions

Subscriptions & Pricing

Find the most common questions asked around Subscriptions, Pricing and Credits

CGI Backgrounds provides a variety of plans to meet the needs of everyone from passionate hobbyists to 3D designers at large enterprises

Our Free plan is perfect for hobbyists or casual users who need a few HDRis or backplates per month. If you're just starting out in the world of 3D design-or you need an HDRi map for a one - off architectural visualization or virtual product photo - our Free plan is the perfect fit. Although the plan is free, you'll still have access to all the premium HDRi maps and skies in our collection. Keep in mind that the Free plan does not allow for commercial use - you're welcome to use our HDRis in your portfolio or in a pitch to win a new client, but if you end up using our content in a paid project, you'll need to upgrade to a Pro or Studio plan. The Free plan is also perfect for enterprise users who want to compare CGI Backgrounds' HDRi content to offerings from other providers.
CGI Backgrounds' Personal/Student plan is the ideal fit for design students or prolific hobbyists who need access to more HDRi maps, skies, and backplates each month. Although the plan is still limited to non-commercial uses, you'll have more than enough download credits to build bigger projects, showcase your work on Behance, or impress your professor with the quality of your renders.
Our Freelance plan is a great fit for freelancers, solopreneurs, and small teams who need to use our content for commercial, paid projects. Priced to accommodate smaller design shops and emerging startups, our Pro plan unlocks commercial uses and provides 800 credits per month.
As your company grows, so do your needs! Our Pro plan provides 1,200 credits per month and accommodates companies with up to $1 million in annual revenue. It's a great fit for larger design firms and later-stage startups.
Our Enterprise plan provides unparalleled access to our collections for enterprise customers of any size. Whether you need to visualize products at scale with our HDRi maps or place your automotive digital vehicle model on the perfect backplate for a big campaign, our Enterprise plan and award-winning team are ready to meet your needs. See below for more information on the advantages of our Enterprise plan.

Feel free to begin with a lower-priced plan and work your way up as your organization expands. We want to grow with you!

Credits unlock the ability to download high-resolution HDRi and Backplate content. You can select any image size at the time of download. Later, you can return and download the same content in a different size or format without using additional credits.

For Monthly Plans - Monthly credits at your plan's level are added to your account at the time of purchase. On the same day of each subsequent month, your new monthly credits are issued at the same time. The monthly plan is a perfect fit for designers who need to minimize their upfront costs, and want the flexibility of being able to cancel their subscription at any time.
For Yearly Plans - The full credit amount for the year is issued to your account at the time of purchase. This works well if you have a bigger project that requires more content, but you're not sure what jobs are on the horizon. Getting all your credits at once is a great way to rapidly build a portfolio or serve a large client's needs.

Credits do not expire. There is no need to cancel your subscription if you're traveling or cannot use all your credits at one time. If you have unused credits at the end of a given month, your credits will roll over to the next month.

Free to Student/Personal

When you need more content per month, or want a full year of credits all at once.

Student/Personal to Freelance

When you need more content each month than the Student/Personal plan provides
When you are doing commercial work

Freelance to Pro

When you have a larger job requiring more content, and the yearly amount of 14,400 credits works best for your needs
When your company grows and your revenue exceeds the limits of the Freelance plan.

Freelance or Pro to Enterprise

When your content needs exceed that of the other commercial plans
When you're working with other team members or outside vendors and want a centralized solution for your HDRi and Backplate content needs
When you're looking for direct personal support with the CGI.B Connect App, as well as content research
When you want a bigger say in the type of content available on the site and the features of our tools

Right now you need to contact us via our contact form or via mail contact@cgibackgrounds.com . But soon you can do this as a self service.

CGI Backgrounds' Enterprise plan provides our highest level of access and service for our largest clients. Enterprise plans enable our clients to create more content per brand in less time, for less cost.

The Enterprise plan allows access for internal design reviews, product releases, and all marketing and advertising. Internal Design teams can preview new model exploration in endless environments.

Because the Enterprise plan allows access for multiple divisions, sub-contractors and vendors, agencies can encourage their brand clients to purchase an Enterprise plan directly from CGI Backgrounds. The plan then allows your agency - as well as your client and their other vendors and subcontractors - to access and download CGI Backgrounds' content.

This process simplifies expensing for agencies, and provides brands with the flexibility to share access among multiple contributing vendors, as well as their own creative teams. Internal creative teams can share lightboxes, comps, and HR files with post-production partners, and 3rd party post-production groups can access content for Brand/license specific projects.

Enterprise plan pricing can be scaled for regional, national or global placement needs.

Enterprise plans also include an account representative point of contact at CGI Backgrounds for both technical and research support.

We want to grow with you! If you subscribe to one plan and your needs change, CGI Backgrounds can work with you to upgrade to a higher tier. If you're on a Pro or Studio plan and need more credits than usual in a given month, you may purchase additional credits for a one-time fee. Credits are available in your account immediately after purchase.

If you need to take a break from making great content, you can cancel your monthly subscription at any time. As credits do not expire you can use already available credits at a later time

CGI.Backgrounds’ website and the CGI.B Connect app are free to access for anyone.

An account lets you set up a user profile, download comp images at 1K resolution, and create sharable lightboxes of content for your projects

All accounts include a one-time 50 free comp download credits. These credits allow for 50 downloads of un-watermarked comp images at the 1K size allowing you to make sure the content will be right for your projects.

After the 50 comp credits are used up, users will still be able to download watermarked comps free of charge.

Upgrade to the free subscription for 150 comp download and content credits for downloading full resolution Backplates and HDRi Maps

Subscription credits are renewed monthly if you have a monthly subscription and yearly if you have a yearly subscription.

All of the subscriptions require credit card information to process the credits to your account.

We use credit cards as a way to validate the user is an actual person.

Subscribers to the Free Account will not receive any charges to their credit card. The card is used to secure your account.

All downloads include five resolution options (2K, 4K, 8K, 16K and 30K) in three formats (.hdr, .exr, and tone mapped .tif)

Free = one HDRi Map download per month, but with a limited resolution of 4K
Personal / Student = four HDRi Map downloads per month
Freelance = eight HDRi Map downloads per month
Pro = twelve HDRi Map downloads per month
Backplates are available for 50 credits at full resolution in .jpg, .tif, and .dng format.

All subscriptions include access to CGI Backgrounds' entire collection of premium HDRis and backplates, in professional image formats and at a high-resolution. You may also download preview images in a .jpg format. You can access our content via the CGI.B Connect app or CGIBackgrounds.comWhen you download content using your subscription, CGI Backgrounds grants you the rights dictated in our licensing agreement.

Downloads by Free and Student/Personal users are for non-commercial use only. You may use downloaded content for your portfolio, in a class, in a presentation to a prospective client, on your Behance profile, and for other unpaid, non-commercial purposes.

Downloads by Freelance and Pro users receive commercial usage rights, as described in our licensing agreement. These rights exist in perpetuity - you may continue using the content commercially if you later end your subscription.

Licences

Commercial usage can be confusing. Here are some definitions to help you determine what constitutes commercial use.

If you are getting paid to do the work, the work falls under commercial use
If you not getting paid (pro-bono), but the end project will be used to sell a product, your use is commercial

If you originally used content in a portfolio piece, but now need to use it for a paid project, you can upgrade from non-commercial to commercial use after the fact. Upgrading to commercial use is easy; simply email us, and our team will walk you through the process. In many cases, the end client (brand or company) that is using content your for advertising will pay for the upgrade.

If you're not sure whether a use is commercial, just ask! As professional creators ourselves, we are here to help, and want to see all our users be successful in their careers. We have extensive experience in rights management and copyright issues. We're happy to answer any questions you have.

Here is a useful, free resource that can help you determine which uses are commercial: https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/commercial-use

In addition to our high-value subscription plans, you can always license content on an individual image basis. We have simplified our pricing for individual licenses based on three factors: time, media type, and target territory

Time: 1 year, 2 years, 3 years, or in perpetuity
Media Type: Web & Digital, Print, and Out of Home, or All Media
Target Territory: Specific Country, Major Region, or World Wide

A la Carte Content License pricing includes multi-image discounts for larger content buys, with the ability to pre-purchase assets in bulk at further discounts.

An a la carte license of an HDRi Map includes both the .hdr radiance file and the tone-mapped 360º .tif file

Where applicable*, an a la carte license of a photographic backplate includes both the .tif backplate file and the matching* HDRi Map in .hdr radiance file format.

CGIBackgrounds a la carte licenses always include a .hdr file, and a .tif.', type: 'block'

*must have a matching dome to apply

CGI.Backgrounds Rights Managed Content represents our storied past of providing background/backdrop content for 3D workflows. The collection contains professional photography of locations that have been captured around the world. These images were shot specifically for product placement and storytelling.

Both backplates and HDRi Maps can be found in the Rights Managed Content, with the quality level meeting the high standards as defined at the time of capture.

Like any company or offering that has been around for almost 20 years, our standards have evolved, but that does not mean this content has any less story-telling or brand messaging power than that of the newest Premium Collection.

Content in the Rights Managed collection consists of

HDRi Maps in the .hdr radiance file format at a minimum resolution of 8K (8,0000 pixels in the long dimension)
Backplates images in the .tif file format at a minimum resolution of 6K (6,0000 pixels in the long dimension)

The content, although of a different technical standard than today’s top content from our Premium collection, is still a great option for placing your 3D products into a real-world photography location to help support the Brand Messaging of your sales and marketing campaign.

The Premium Content Library includes content that meets our newest and most stringent image standards. The rigorous standards and calibrations allow for 3D content creation workflows to operate with a lower level of effort.

The high consistency of the content means that workflows can be automated when connected to our Premium Content Library.

Content is clustered around the idea of our “Location,” where our photographers have captured a place in a very specific manner . Each Location consists of the following:

A minimum of one HDRi Map (Spherical High Dynamic Range image) in the following formats:

Color-Calibrated radiance file format of .hdr at a resolution of 30K (30,000 pixels in the long dimension)
Color-Calibrated 8bit Tone Mapped version of the HDRi Map in .tif format at a resolution of 30K (30,000 pixels in the long dimension)
Proprietary CGIBackgrounds RAY.HDR if a direct light source is visible in the HDRi Map

A minimum of one backplate photograph in a TIFF file format of .tif at a resolution of 10K (10,000 pixels in the long dimension)

There is at least one (1) HDRi Map per “Location” with an average of twenty (20) Backplates images shot at various points of view and from multiple camera heights

To put it simply, every “Location” has at least one fully matching, calibrated and retouched HDRi Map with multiple Backplates.

Assets

Questions around our assets, the formats and sizes are explained below

Backplates are traditional photographs shot by professional photographers that serve as the background for your render or product shot

Preview size is 1028 pixels in a .jpg format
High-Resolution formats are downloadable 4K for .jpg formats or Max Res for .tif or .dng formats
Formats include .jpg, .tif (8 bit bit color calibrated) and .dng (16 bit original RAW)

HDR Images are high-dynamic-range spherical images used for lighting and reflections of a 3D project. Our HDRis are shot by professional photographers with years of production experience.

Preview size is 1028 pixels in a .jpg format
High-Resolution formats are downloadable as 2K, 4K, 8K, 16K and 30K width
Formats include

.hdr (32 bit images - 8 bits per component, but with an additional (shared) 8-bit exponent value)
.exr (32 bit images - stored as multiple layers and passes at full float)
.tif (16 bit color calibrated tonemapped image)